The wheel of autonomy: rhetoric and ethnicity in the Omo Valley

Author
Felix Girke

Publisher
New York, Oxford: Berghahn

Year of publication
2019

ISBN
978-1-78533-950-9

OPAC

Abstract
How do the Kara, a small population residing on the eastern bank of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia, manage to be neither annexed nor exterminated by any of the larger groups that surround them? Through the theoretical lens of rhetoric, this book offers an interactionalist analysis of how the Kara negotiate ethnic and non-ethnic differences among themselves, the relations with their various neighbors, and eventually their integration in the Ethiopian state. The model of the “Wheel of Autonomy” captures the interplay of distinction, agency and autonomy that drives these dynamics and offers an innovative perspective on social relations.

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